Recent article on Megachips and BRN fit.
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POSTED ON
MAY 2, 2022
Osaka, Japan-based ASIC provider, MegaChips Corp. (Japan) has announced its entry into the US market. MegaChips is one of the world’s leading custom ASIC providers for consumer, telecom/network, industrial and automotive apps. Headquartered in Japan, it has offices in Silicon Valley and Taiwan. MegaChips is ISO9001 certified and ensures the highest levels of intellectual property security.
Douglas Fairbairn.
Right on time!
Looking at the announcement, has Megachips made a late entry into the global edge AI chips market? Douglas Fairbairn, Director of Business Development for MegaChips LSI USA Corp., said: “From our perspective, we’re not late for production, but right on time. There have been a number of companies entering this market from an IP point of view. However, those companies, in general, are still gaining traction and are not yet at the volume production stage, which is where we’re most interested in participating. We see a lot of market potential for volume ahead of us. There are still areas that might be a good early entry point for us to take advantage of beginning in 2022, and ramping up in 2023 and 2024"
There are already a couple of areas where volume has been attained, such as the data center market, which is dominated by Nvidia and Intel. However, MegaChips is not addressing that market.
So, how is the AI chip industry positioned to address emerging cases for integrated processors, etc.? By integrated processors, things like RISC-V, or ARM, that are being embedded in other chips, or in SoCs. If that’s the case, the AI chip industry is very well positioned to take advantage of that emerging trend, which has been underway for some time.
What people have found is that the existing processors from ARM or RISC-V do not address the power performance requirements of the AI industry. There are some low-end cases that can be handled with software on these embedded processors. In general, people are looking for either accelerators to pair with those processors, or completely new processors, that would replace the embedded processor and AI into a much higher performance functionality.
In this case, MegaChips’ partner, BrainChip, is an example of an accelerator that would be combined with the existing embedded processors. In the case of its other IP partner, Quadric, they could be either used as an accelerator, or even supersede the need for an embedded processor.
Determining success
Now, there have been attempts from some others, but not with much success. How can MegaChips determine its path?
According to Fairbairn, we see this as an emerging market. Those who tried to enter with volume production capabilities up until now were too early to the party. It’s only now that people are reaching the point where they are in need of volume production opportunities.
There have been many obstacles to the adoption of AI, and adoption has been relatively slow. MegaChips realized that, and partnered with a couple of IP vendors that already had some significant traction, but also needed the muscle of pairing up with a silicon vendor to actually provide a complete solution to the customer.
By combining forces and offering that complete solution, and with the ability to help the customer determine which solution is best to integrate into a single chip or module, we can help overcome those things. We are investing heavily in internal capability to address this very need. We believe that we’re hitting the market at an ideal time to be involved with some designs that can go into production in the near future.
Approaching Taiwan
Therefore, why hasn’t MegaChips approached Taiwan companies who are more bent toward AI chips?
As per Fairbairn, it’s an interesting potential market. We think that we’ll be able to tap into those through some of the relationships we have in the US and Taiwan. Eventually, we will establish a base there, as well. Although we are focusing on the US at the moment, we actually see that there are Taiwanese companies interested in working with US-based IP companies. We may be able to help them enter the market.
Elaborate on the best ways to implement desired AI functionalities. He said the answer depends on the app! This is one of the factors that is slowing the adoption curve down, because customers have trouble trying to figure out which is the best solution. They might have questions like, “Can we do it with purely software solutions using the processors I have already embedded? Do I need an accelerator? If so, which ones should I adopt?”.
Customers want to make sure they have the right solutions that will significantly increase the performance capabilities without increasing costs. We’re in a position to help them decide which is the best way, and help them figure out the most comprehensive solution. Our knowledge of the industry and capabilities will greatly help overcome this problem.
US entry
He also elaborated on MegaChips’ entry to the US. What is it looking to achieve? Fairbairn said we’ve already done a major push into working with IP partners like BrainChip and Quadric. Every one of those IP vendors needs to have a path to silicon, and we are interested in working with any IP partner who are ready to put their IP to test in real silicon to demonstrate their capability.
We think there are significant opportunities in the United States because it tends to be an early adopter versus what we’ve seen with some of the Japanese companies. There is also a wider variety of markets and systems companies, such as in wearables, appliances, office and factory automation. All of these represent significant opportunities beyond what is available in Japan.
We’re eager to get our name out there and be better known in the US, with the goal of becoming the leading ASIC vendor for embedding AI functionality into your chips. If you have any AI or ASIC requirement, MegaChips is your first and best choice supplier here in the US.
So, do they have any any tie ups to announce? He added that the ones we’ve announced are the ones we have. Others may be forthcoming in the future.
Also, what about Europe and Asia? According to Fairbairn, Europe is an interesting market. We’ve found that there are representatives of European companies based in the US with operations here, who are doing some of the advanced development work. We’re already working with those companies, so we have a path to Europe. But, it’s not a focus of our activity right now.
With Asia, as we are reflecting on Taiwan, all of these companies have some sort of operation, typically a more advanced development operation, here in the US. We can get to those companies through those US outposts. Right now, we think the US is our largest opportunity. As we develop and mature in that marketplace, we will be expanding our capabilities and awareness into other markets as well.
FF
At least his toes will be kept warm. FF
